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Soho
Overview Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for a seedy natureas well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable transformation. It now is predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices. During this time, a large proportion of the Wizarding world was beginning to descend as prices for housing were dropping and the environment allowed them to live a little more openly. Map History The area of Soho was grazing farmland until 1536, when it was taken by Henry VIII as a royal park for the Palace of Whitehall. The name "Soho" first appears in the 17th century. Most authorities believe that the name derives from a former hunting cry.The Duke of Monmouth used “soho” as a rallying call for his men at the Battle of Sedgemoor, half a century after the name was first used for this area of London. In the 1660s the Crown granted Soho Fields to Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans. He leased 19 of its 22 acres (89,000 m2) to Joseph Girle, who gained permission to build and promptly passed his lease and licence to bricklayer Richard Frith in 1677. Frith began the development. In 1698 William III granted the Crown freehold of most of this area to William, Earl of Portland. Meanwhile the southern part of what became the parish of St Anne Soho was sold by the Crown in parcels in the 16th and 17th centuries. Despite the best intentions of landowners such as the Earls of Leicester and Portland to develop the land on the grand scale of neighbouring Bloomsbury, Marylebone and Mayfair, Soho never became a fashionable area for the rich. Immigrants settled in the area: the French church in Soho Square was founded by French Huguenots in the 17th and 18th centuries. By the mid-18th century, the aristocrats who had been living in Soho Square or Gerrard Street had moved away. Soho’s character stems partly from the ensuing neglect by rich and fashionable London, and the lack of redevelopment that characterized the neighbouring areas. By the mid-19th century, all respectable families had moved away, and prostitutes, music halls and small theatres had moved in. In the early 20th century, foreign nationals opened cheap eating-houses, and the neighbourhood became a fashionable place to eat for intellectuals, writers and artists. From the 1930s to the early 1960s, Soho folklore states that the pubs of Soho were packed every night with drunken writers, poets and artists, many of whom never stayed sober long enough to become successful; and it was also during this period that the Soho pub landlords established themselves. Current Residents Old Compton Street: *''27 Old Compton Street'' - Charles Ives Gerrard Street: Golden Square: *''60 Beak Street'' - Missy Pemberton *''40 Harvey Street'' - Katherine Evans *''7 Cloverleaf Lane'' - Liam Ives *''22 Warwick Street'' - Keiley McDanford Current to Masterlist: March 24th 2011 Category:OMApedia A to Z Category:Locations